Bear, Grace, Misery
by Euphora
Summary: What is it like, perhaps, to stray from one body to the other? How does it feel? Jake feels everything, endures everything, and experiences an awakening unlike anything he's experienced beforehand when his consciousness is permanently converted. Oneshot.


**Bear, Grace, Misery**

_Occasionally in life there are those moments of sanctuary and peace, a utopia of wonder and utter fulfilment where life itself no longer holds dormant in reality. I have often wondered all my life, noticing one aspect from another, watching, waiting, but never seeing. The sudden disappointment of hope leaves a scar which ultimately never heals. It's not a mere wound to heal or cleanse of infection, but a puncture which never seals. It merely serves as a reminder of the things you lose, and unfortunately for me my scare had to happen within as much as out, so much to my demise. And yet, it is within this loneliness that the deepest activities begin, where the life that you thought was over was suddenly beginning through a new and tentative era of promise. A sanctuary._

_It is here you discover act without motion, labour that is purpose and profound, vision within impossibilities, and, beyond all desire, a fulfilment whose limits extend to infinity. All I wanted was a life worth living, filled with significance and understanding. The mere essence of these needs captured my desires to an extent to which they could no longer be described in those symbols called words, but I knew what I wanted, and I wanted it like no other. The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, reason, personal congruence, contribution, and, more than anything, love. I never understood that until now, until I learnt that the purpose for living is the purpose to create, in which you create the life you were born to live and fulfill. _

_It appears that everything I once saw and did has a new, and perhaps, a more significant meaning then I once interpreted. Every time I see it, I see privilege and dedication, adoration and sentiment, love and devotion… everything that I thought I'd never see again. It seems to be my fate to discover only the obvious, that I was somewhat meant to suffer to gain relief. You have to count on loosing, prepare to be diminished by its consequences, then weep upon the outcome of your demise, but in the end you'll always find that what was taken like a knife to a heart was meant to be, and that the pain of servitude to an unconditional vitally was worth all the torment. Perhaps that only being needed wasn't the image I'd wanted to perceive, and that my once foreshadowing disability wouldn't come between me and my desires. But it wasn't the efficiency of being needed that gave me the strength; it was the prospect of belonging._

_And for once, amid the ashes of my past, I truly saw._

_

* * *

_

The mere singular of darkness was utterly diminishing. I felt departed and astray, slumbering between reality and a waking dream. I couldn't begin to fathom the course of my sanity or to where it extended and weakened, but I could feel its absence from within me, and it was maddening. I drift within and out, lost upon a reverie of forgotten memories. I could see them, but I could not name them. I wanted to reach out and grasp them by the bearings of their familiarity, to be within the awareness of their intimate knowledge and vast experience, but even the closet comfort seemed so far and so deep within the obscure of darkness that my hope to seize them was suddenly lost.

My incoherent vision swung and pitched between scattered images and depicted thoughts, feathering upon a stupor of both strange but immobile feelings. There were many filled with sorrow, poised with grief and determination, but tainted with either death or destruction. Others were filled with loss, anguish, and blame. My heart ached at the glimpse of such conviction.

I could feel them now as if I were living them, the awareness of such emotion straining my vivid mentality. I watched as flickers of sights and sounds passed within me like a whirlwind of reminiscence, bellowing throughout remembrance as I tentatively saw myself mimic my actions through the reflections of my thoughts. As I saw, I felt, and as I felt, I witnessed, and such things were mortifying, but intimately beautiful. I yearned to remember, to evoke the tenderness as my own within some of the sights I was suddenly seeing, but all seemed so far and so little to hold.

I was astounded, mortified, as my unconscious eyes glazed over in wonder, beholding there mere image of myself within a retrospect of impossibilities. I thought it was a dream, an illusion conceived into realism, but the sequence of their apparent priority seemed too familiar to simply assume that they were nothing but an aspect of imagery. My consciousness seemed desperate to grasp anything that came into view, but again, all attempts seemed pointlessly futile and detained by the inflexibility staging throughout my unmoving ligaments. So I did nothing but feel.

The degrading part was that I didn't know if these were my memories at all, whether or not if I was the persona they perceived so easily. Again, what I was seeing did indeed seem rather… bewildering, if not petrifying. Perhaps they were merely a figment of my empty imagination, or rather a mirage of stupidity, but if that were so then why did I feel so… _alight?_

If I were able to move, wherever I may be now, I would have laughed right then and there. Leave it to an imperfect crippled jarhead to account for such irrational things. Within each miraculous event that took place before my own eyes, there was bound to be a moment of indifferent possibilities, a range of consequential instants that simply couldn't be. It was obvious, perhaps, that maybe seeing myself walking amongst others invoked a sense of longing within me; because I knew the moment I was told that I was an enfeebled paraplegic… that I would never have the relieving opportunity to use my legs again, even if the spinal surgeries were there. I could never afford them; I could hardly afford to pay for myself when they said that my _current _disability rendered me useless to still serve as a marine. It was… pointless to assume anything anymore, because in the end, I'd always be labelled as the unfortunate one.

That's why I was beginning to doubt anything and everything that passed within a flash of my torpid eyes, because in those moments I was running, I was leaping, I was _free_. And not to mention, within the range of absurd insanities overpowering me, and upon the madness consuming my entire being, that I was somewhat… different… foreign. I wasn't me in these memories.

I wasn't human…

_Jake… _I felt a complicated edge settle over me through the braid of emotions lurching within me like a simmering wellspring beneath my heart, as if the darkness overlapping me through each individual image had an atmosphere and the air within it dampened and seethed to indicate the change of climate. Everything stilled, everything lulled to the calling of my name, everything holding all for the hearing of my identity among the blur of shadow. I wanted to hear it again, to listen for a sign of its arrival upon the unknown spokesmen. It made the madness simpler to bear through my apparent insanity. I was willing to hear anything through this derangement.

At last, I heard it again, the voice seemingly too familiar as they, whoever they were, continued to speak and heeded my mental plea for more. _Jake… please… _instead of a delirium of hysteria, I could feel a peace settle within me, a calmness easing my soul through warmth and ambience. It sounded so close, so familiar and intimate that I longed to hear it again. It wasn't my name I wanted to hear so badly, it was the voice, a voice that I knew, but didn't at the same time. I was so confused, so lost. I wanted to hear… her.

_Jake. My Jake… _I was beginning to feel everything, the surpassing moment of the sights and sounds of foregoing images sustaining my need to simply have more, the need to hear her, to see her, to feel…

_You haven't got lost in the woods, have you?_ In that moment, I felt the trembling need to scream, to devoid my lungs of air and cry out into the empty darkness, but I could do nothing but simply… remain. Everything seemed so depleted suddenly, compressed and impassively hollow. I felt _disabled _of all action, unable to do anything but wait. Under the pressure of abandonment, I felt completely hindered and rendered useless, forsaken under the eve of anger and sorrow. _This low gravity will make you soft… you get soft…_

I needed to escape, to stow away toward something more meaningful and understanding. This malady of rage and lunacy tearing through my head was beginning to unhinge my comprehension for reason, my sense of mind and intelligence, and all I wanted was to believe that there was something more than just a reel of imagery, a meaning more than illusion, a sanctuary.

_Everything is backwards now…_ I could feel a tremor of reanimation converse within me, a disorienting feeling joining the crevasses of my soul together and stabilizing them as if the two separate unities were ready to combust into nothingness. _Like out there is the true world…_ My voice, strange yet receptive, reminding me, willing me to listen. It was bizarre to hear it, eerie yet pleasant. _… and in here is the dream…_

I felt myself slip, falling forever into the darkness, my conscious seemingly beginning to leave the very pores of my being as I drifted skyward. Everything, indeed, backwards… _Do you forget what team you're playing for?_

_I need to do this… _the vast expand of emotions were beginning to surround me completely, concealing me in an envelope of overwhelming fervent. I felt high and florid over the mass of such refuge, my heart beginning to quell with recognition. I was drained of all anger, dispatched of sorrow and hatred, and instead I felt euphoric, I felt intense as I soared through the deep, welling from the amount of longing I desired through the feebleness of my needs. I wanted her again, I wanted…

_Neytiri… _My entire being sighed with desire, the sudden realization of remembrance dawned upon my able thoughts, my reason, my understanding. _I can't do this anymore, Neytiri… _My body sung in hope, my soul merging into envy and urgent dependency. It was beautiful. _I can't continue to live a lie, knowing that when I close my eyes that it'll no longer be me who embraces you at night… _I strived to touch her at the mere thought of embracing her, to hold her against me as we would whenever we were together. The need was appetent. _I want to live for real, to be with you and not wake to find myself within a chamber any longer. I want my conscious to be converted… permanently. I long for nothing more than to fall asleep at night, knowing that when I do, I can dream for real and awaken beside you every morning for the rest of my life…_ My voice chimed like a whisper, hushed upon the tone of my quietness. I knew that what I was saying was sincere. I could feel it.

I watched the moment longer, watching me, her, through the reflections of my thoughts, of _my_ memories. I could watch forever as I strayed within and within out a dreamscape of once forgotten recollections. How could I've ever forgotten?

_Jake … _she said fondly, a smile within her voice as she reached up and brushed the sides of my face with delicate hands, as if she were afraid that I was as frail as my… human body, and that I would shatter into oblivion. I could feel her, within me and out, the tenderness of her touch through my mind, the subtle elegance of her gentle palms, the adoration of her smile… _You are like a dreamer, wondering what may be, wishing for more._

_I want nothing more._

_Yes, but you leave so much, yet want to remember nothing… _Relief washed within me, hearing and seeing, looking upon the things I loved the most, and yet I still remained adrift in a remembrance of things past. I wanted to be living; I wanted to be running… I wanted my Neytiri.

_I only wish… want to remember the moments in which you and I are together… _I had said, my gaze cast downward and beyond her beautiful face, _and not a meaningless nightmare full of a lifeless world._

_But it is your world, Jake… _I watched as her hands tilted my head softly so I could look at her without faltering, the feeling reverberating within my veins as I continued to see without living. _You are willing to forget so easily…_

_Yes… yes, you're right, I am willing… _She looked at me, seeing me through the bearings of my soul, a glimmer within her eyes as she stared without moving. It seemed as if she could remain motionless for days, willing for me to see her as she did through me, but as I saw myself I saw reason, I saw truth and acceptance, but I needed, as much as ever, to say what needed to be said, and she knew that. Watching, waiting, I saw myself grasp the sides of her face as she did with me, only gentler, and leaned upon her brow as I spoke. I could feel her beneath my fingers, the satiny inflection of her breath, her eyes delving amid my own… _But that's just the point, I am willing. And I would do it again… for you. I'm tired, Neytiri, tired of a life that knows no opportunities, tired of being useless and waking up to a world that just… doesn't need me. It's you that I want, and without you I don't think life would be meaningful. Without you, I'd be nothing… _I smiled, holding her to me, never letting go, nor wanting to. _I would be dreamer dreaming dreams…_

_Why do you speak in riddles? You... puzzle words into mysteries._

_I merely speak what is, and what would have been had I not met you._

Her abundant eyes brimmed with concern. _But your life…_

_My life, _I said, murmuring, unwavering amid the darkness, _is here with you and the Omaticaya._

Within the near soundless whispers through the night air, the gentle slumbers of the widespread wilderness of organic life stretching beyond the eye, I felt her faintly exhale through the passing moments withstanding between us, relishing within the feeling as it washed between us. I longed for more, but all I could do was see within solace, and watch through the solitude of comfort. At least I could feel, to enjoy her being against me even though I was not truly there…

_My Jake… _At last, her voice consoled me, bringing me amenity as well as relief. I thought she would never answer, my spirit dependant on her voice alone. It was profound and reeling how everything now seemed, without demeanor, reliant upon the sound of her voice. My blood sung with vigour at the mere movement of her body, a simple flinch upon her lithe face. It was undeniable. I would be lost if not for her. I would be… crippled…

_You are true warrior in soul, Olo'eyktan, but in heart and body… _She lifted her head, leaning up effortlessly like the agile creature she was, and feathered her lips over my brow. My body seared with covetous want, me eyes slipping closed…_ you are true lover of all things great… It will be done, and you will see the light of your people through these eyes… _she touched my eyes with a careful finger, one after the other, and then pressed herself against me as she enwrapped her arms around my body, her head fitted against my chest. I enclosed her toward me and held her as my own, sighing into her braided tendrils with absolute adore. I never wanted to let her go. _And… _she said softly, leeringly amused as she grinned against my skin… _you may dream dreams._

_And have you…_

She laughed lightly, her head lifting to look up at me once more, the sound bringing music to my ears. _Yes… and that. Nìftxavang…with all my heart._

Her measuring stare remained perfectly fixated upon my gaping, a surpassing moment lasting instances. I could feel her deep, gesturing gaze pierce the very fores of my mind, seeing me, watching me as if I were on a pedestal. Through the mirror image of my thoughts, I could feel every fracture of my being fall to the merriment of her stare, her touch upon my skin, and her gentle rise and fall of her chest against my own. The feeling was entirely overpowering, compressing me into the very depths of her devotion. But, through the haziness of the fading memory, my still apparent unconscious eyes began to glaze over within a blur of vividness. We were fading, my unmoving limbs budging ever forcefully to grasp the remaining fragrance from disappearing from view, but I knew, as well as my body, that it was pointless to even try. Much to my refusal, the darkness was beginning lap me entirely, sealing me from even looking onto the memories of my being. I was gone, Neytiri was gone… we were no longer there upon the glade.

And then nothing… I was alone again, lost upon the nothingness consuming everything from within my view. I felt like crying out again, screaming among the blackness where nothing would hear me, hindering myself useless until every part of my soul was quenched and drained of life. I needed her reassurance, her gentle voice over my ear, whispering mellowed words that evoked the sense of longing within me. I was drowning upon the emptiness of the foreshadowed barren, depriving me of all feeling. I felt… nothing.

And then, like an undertone of a silent murmur, a hum of remembrance summoning my waking thoughts once more, I heard it once more. My voice again, strange yet still sober, bestirring among my head as if to rally me… _Sooner or later, though, you always have to wake up…_

It was demoralizing; the pure feeling of not knowing which way is either up or down, left from right, or if you're walking upon the stupor of dead or alive. My voice quickly faded among the darkness, leaving me, once more, onto the brink of insanity, nothing keeping me from falling. I was certain of it. Abruptly and utterly certain. I was slipping once more unconditionally, straying downward into oblivion. Everything seemed like a feeble illusion of sudden re-emergence, a type of rebirth into a world full of revelation and captivity. It was happening extremely fast, wavering within and out a glance of shadow and night swept surroundings.

_Wake up…_

From the gallows of my sanity, I could feel myself somewhat departing, dismembering from an aspect of a visionary semblance. As if it were a fantasy conceived by an idealist_, a dream, _I felt myself being pulled further and further into an unknown chimera, as if awakening from a forgotten slumber. _My Jake… _I heard again; seemingly for the last time in this conjuring dreamscape, a gentle voice… a familiar voice, one I could hear forever onto my death.

_Wake up now, Jake…_

There was a light, a lucent shade amid the darkness, and then the ignition of life bounded toward me, illuming me entirely. A splendour of sudden realization and radiant humidity, awakening to the aurora of a bright enkindled soar, I suddenly, excitedly, inhaled as if for the first time. Air inflamed my lungs, the sweetness held unmasked and untainted within the blood of my spirit, energy gulfing throughout my ligaments within a desperate surge of mass relief. I was alive, discharged and alight with wanton fire. Soon enough, I exhaled, dawning upon my verve. The feeling was exquisite, and undeniably real. I was breathing, I was alive… I was feeling.

Mere moments passed, straying through the allay of my easement, counting on through more, until finally the feeling passed through everything. My entire body sung with feeling, stalled upon the remittance of my soul, drifting through the aglow of relief and solace. I breathed in once again, the air soothing me. Without thought, I tentatively tested my boundaries. Slowly and unsurely, as if strained upon a fickle hope, I prompt my fingers to stir, animating them to do as I willed. Success coursed within me as they moved abidingly by my sides, feeling the ground beneath them as I tested their tendency. I was elated. I tried again, only this time I moved my feet. I provoked them as I wanted, my toes twitching in advance, my legs feeling their spur of movement as I breathed in again, only this time with utter joy. I could move them. I wasn't crippled. I was me…

"Jake…?"

My ears heard the veil of muffled concern before I even had a chance to identify the voice, but I knew, despite my current vagueness, whom it belonged to. I could decipher it anywhere. My heart, now living and soaring with life, kindled with enamour. My eyes, sealed from reality, slowly, as if stalled upon an impending assurance, slipped open onto the world, and I saw.

"Neytiri." I breathed almost instantly. My own voice, now real and unhindered by an illusion, caught within my throat. The action seemed unavoidable, for I could do nothing, if ever vividly, but stare at her, my voice lost. It seemed all I could ever do was watch her from afar, as if my needs seemed futile, but I knew the doubt of acceptance was nothing but a suspire delved from self-insecurity. She was here; she was real and not some figment of a memory. She was living.

My eyes bored deeply into hers from where I laid, her angelic face reflecting the very tepidity I felt within myself only moments ago, her eyes ablaze with nerves as she looked down upon me. In that moment, I knew where I was. The gentle wisps and hums of the many Na'vi voices echoing among the night reached my keen ears almost instantly upon realizing they were there. The small, frail maile vines of the Tree of Souls entwining over the form of my naked body suddenly stirred, feathering over me as the luminescent vines slowly began to fade and retreat within the large ocular willow, remaining, once more, unmoving under the night. Within the light that slowly faded upon its silent retreat, the singing voices overlapping the area also began to fade into a lulling hush, the lastingness of their preys withering into silence as they stilled their cerebral rhythms, their dynamism slowly weakening by their melting element. Then, by the aid of their silence, they waited, unwavering amid the night, watching.

By their silence, I was completely motionless, the only movement that flickered among us lidded within my gazing eyes. I blinked vapidly amid the night air, reassuring myself that this was, in retrospect, realistic and authentic. As it seemed, it was no more real than the moment I lost the will to use my legs, and I was ecstatic. Elation filled my heart, the feeling widening throughout my body. Instantly, my thoughts already decided upon, I carefully sat up on surbase of the primal willow, a series of voices exclaiming in amazement as they bared witness, wonder within their tones as they continued to observe.

It was simple enough, the haziness of my previous state fading as if it never were, and I instantly felt relaxed and rejuvenated upon my apparent rebirthing into this world, my home. It was terrific.

"Jake?" Although my eyes had not left hers, it was clear that, whilst still looking into them, that they had easily turned from concern into confusion. My rash movements were bearably confusing to her, her thoughts mislead from my supposed feebleness. Perhaps, maybe, it was unnatural to move so quickly after the transfer, but then again, had this ever happened before? In an act to reassure her, I slowly reached out toward her, careful not petrify her further into bewilderment as I made my actions clear by the hesitance I was taking, and placed it softly upon her cheek. We didn't move, everything stalling within our conveyance toward each other, her eyes agape in amazement. She was beautiful.

"I see you," I whisper to her, my voice quiet amid the night's conformity, but it was only meant for her ears.

She stared, her mouth parted slightly as if words were meant to be spoken, but were never said. I waited for her to comprehend, patient to watch her forever until the moment of recognition. I smiled, grinning as if I were the child she once perceived me to be, hoping this reenactment would summon something within her, anything to indicate a sense of emotion. Did she not think it was me?

Before my thoughts could initiate another questionable asset, I was rewarded suddenly as the expression on her face changed, a gleam within her eyes. And then, like the memory within the illusion, she exhaled into the night as she placed her hand over my own and leaned into our combined unity, and in return, smiled.

"I see you," she murmured faintly, the same gentle composed fondness lidded within her utterance, attuned upon her touch as well the sound of her voice, the same adoration flittered within her eyes. I looked at her, bearing into the pores of her delicate eyes as if I were reaching for her soul, caught in the envision of her irradiate features… until then, upon the surbase of Tree of Souls, I suddenly caught a glimpse of an infirm body laying limp and broken beside me, completely motionless. Neytiri could sense my mulling curiosity before I even began to turn my head to see it. She didn't deny me.

It was strange, starring upon the deceased body of your former self, knowing that in humanity you were dead, and in continuation your consciousness lived and progressed within another, more sustaining life. I was as fragile as they had said, looking down at my once immobile legs; I could begin to understand what made me indifferent among others, what made me so… abnormal to them. If I had seen myself a year ago, strolling casually down the exit ramp of a delta-winged Valkyrie shuttle craft expecting to take anything a marine throws at me, I would have felt disheartened by me as well. But I had done it, I had exceeded beyond the impossibilities of my disability, refusing to listen to the insults and the obscenities that were constantly thrown at me, and look where it got me…

It was as if I were looking at the lifeless face of Thomas again, seeing him within the cardboard contained coffin one last time, only instead of him it was me. Tom would have given anything to have been here, within the aurora of Vitraya Ramunon, but it seemed fate had other obscene things installed for him, and look where _he_ got in life: cremated into a thick paper lidded box with nothing but the Company's investment over his Avatar. What a way to go.

I looked, once more, toward the body of my previous self, wandering what might have been if things went according to motion. Perhaps Neytiri was right, that I was nothing but a dreamer simply wondering too much and forgetting what proceeded to happen around me, but some things just couldn't be helped. Turning away silently, looking down at my Na'vi legs, I began to thank all for what had happened, excluding Toms death. In return I gained a new life, I had been given the freedom to run and walk among others… and I had been brought to Neytiri and the Omaticaya. For these things I was exceedingly grateful, the feeling of immunity indescribable among any symbolistic word, Human and Na'vi alike.

And as my gaze shifted once again toward Neytiri, concern once more puncturing the beauty of her cherishing face, I couldn't help but grin like a fool, the bearings of my thumb caressing the side of her cheek as her hand stayed upon my own. She inclined ever softly into my touch, her eyes aglow, longing for more as I leaned in and brushed her forehead lightly with my lips, her smooth skin luscious underneath me. I was still grinning, even when I whisper over her skin…

"I can dream dreams now?"

She laughs then, the sound bringing a musical light to my heart. "Yes, you may… forever."

* * *

**Like any other avid devotee, I became utterly entranced within the world of Pandora. I hope, much to my conviction, that this serves the purpose of entertainment, enlightenment and elegance in every plausible way that is Avatar. I wanted to try something different, something elusive compared to what I normally write. So I thought... hey, a 1st person depiction in male form! No, I am a woman, in case you were all wondering. Without further adieu, feedback would be awesome, because in itself, they're extremely helpful to me. And as our lovely (Aussie) protagonist would say... Hoorah!**

**This is a ****one-shot. I thought about making a fully fledged story, but I was too proud to withhold this considering I wrote it within an hour. It depends, if you find it fascinating enough, I may... continue. But then again, I may not. **

**Cheers from Aus. It's bloody hot here at the moment. XD **


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